DisneyDreamer1229
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2015
Hello Fellow DISers and welcome to my first ever PTR! I feel like I have read countless posts and reports since I started going to Disneyland, but only recently joined and decided to give a PTR a go.
I guess we start with a little bit about me. My first trip to Disneyland was December 2013 and it just took the one trip, I was hooked! My brother was the person who convinced me to give it a try, as him and his wife are die-hard Disneyland fans. Before this December trip, I think they had been at least 6 times in the previous 8 years or so. Also on the trip was my nephew, who was just shy of two years old. Since then I have been back twice. In July we went down, same group except with the addition of a new niece, and purchased Annual Passes. They have not been back yet, but I took a trip down in September for a few days with my boyfriend.
Now, we are preparing for our longest trip yet!! My brother's family wants to get another use out of their passes as do I, so we're headed down in May . It will be myself, brother, sister-in-law, nephew (3), niece (1), new niece (5 months) and my boyfriend. Let the planning commence!
In January, after some debate about whether we would go or not, my brother finally decided to make it official and purchased airfare for us all, choosing to go in May from the 5th - 13th. Immediately jumped up and down with joy, and then started to research some options for hotels. In July we had stayed at the BWPPI and in September I tried out the Park Vue. We love the parks too much to get a whole lot of use out a hotel, so these two were perfect as they are right across the street from the parks and it made for a much shorter walk back then where we had stayed in December (a rental home due to the number of people we had).
As I scoured the internet looking for deals, I started to notice a trend. I was having a really hard time finding a hotel with any availability. Starting with the two hotels we had previously stayed at, and branching out from there, every place was booked. Spent hours, if not days, scratching my head over that one before looking at a calendar and realizing, it was Mother's Day weekend. That must be it, right? Wrong. After some additional searching, not only is it Mother's Day weekend, it is also the weekend of the Tinkerbell half marathon! It all makes sense now and after much digging I finally found a hotel that had a family suite available for us all, so our home away from home for our Disneyland extravaganza will be the Camelot Inn.
For our flight, while I have never flown into LAX, my brother has a few times and does not care for it. I have flown on Alaska twice into John Wayne and once on JetBlue into Long Beach. We all enjoy the flight on JetBlue, so our reservations are for a 6:20 am flight out of Seattle and arriving in Long Beach at 8:54 am. My first two trips down, we had rented a car to get around, and the last one decided to try out Super Shuttle, since we were staying across the street and were only there for a few days. With the number of people we have going this trip, and realizing we really didn't use the car all that much anyway, we will be taking the Shuttle again.
Park tickets have been purchased for my nephew, since he will now be three and need a ticket, and my boyfriend. Sadly, he's not able to come down for the full trip so he will be meeting us on Saturday morning and leaving with us Wednesday night. We're still not sure what to do with the nephew's ticket as we are planning on spending 8 days in the park, minus the blacked out Saturday, and the max ticket is now a 5 day. Any tips would be appreciated! We were debating on just upgrading his ticket to an AP, but not sure if that would be the way to go or if there is any other option other than just getting a 3 day ticket as well.
So our flights are booked, hotel reservations confirmed and Shuttle reservations made, tickets purchased and we have 64 days left to go!!! Hoping to get some alone time in with the boyfriend as I really want to check out Trader's Sams this trip. Would kind of like to do a character breakfast as well since the nephew is a little older and is really getting into the Disney stuff. Are there any favorites, or reasons to go with one over another?
Thanks for reading and I look forward to adding on more as we get closer!!
I guess we start with a little bit about me. My first trip to Disneyland was December 2013 and it just took the one trip, I was hooked! My brother was the person who convinced me to give it a try, as him and his wife are die-hard Disneyland fans. Before this December trip, I think they had been at least 6 times in the previous 8 years or so. Also on the trip was my nephew, who was just shy of two years old. Since then I have been back twice. In July we went down, same group except with the addition of a new niece, and purchased Annual Passes. They have not been back yet, but I took a trip down in September for a few days with my boyfriend.
Now, we are preparing for our longest trip yet!! My brother's family wants to get another use out of their passes as do I, so we're headed down in May . It will be myself, brother, sister-in-law, nephew (3), niece (1), new niece (5 months) and my boyfriend. Let the planning commence!
In January, after some debate about whether we would go or not, my brother finally decided to make it official and purchased airfare for us all, choosing to go in May from the 5th - 13th. Immediately jumped up and down with joy, and then started to research some options for hotels. In July we had stayed at the BWPPI and in September I tried out the Park Vue. We love the parks too much to get a whole lot of use out a hotel, so these two were perfect as they are right across the street from the parks and it made for a much shorter walk back then where we had stayed in December (a rental home due to the number of people we had).
As I scoured the internet looking for deals, I started to notice a trend. I was having a really hard time finding a hotel with any availability. Starting with the two hotels we had previously stayed at, and branching out from there, every place was booked. Spent hours, if not days, scratching my head over that one before looking at a calendar and realizing, it was Mother's Day weekend. That must be it, right? Wrong. After some additional searching, not only is it Mother's Day weekend, it is also the weekend of the Tinkerbell half marathon! It all makes sense now and after much digging I finally found a hotel that had a family suite available for us all, so our home away from home for our Disneyland extravaganza will be the Camelot Inn.
For our flight, while I have never flown into LAX, my brother has a few times and does not care for it. I have flown on Alaska twice into John Wayne and once on JetBlue into Long Beach. We all enjoy the flight on JetBlue, so our reservations are for a 6:20 am flight out of Seattle and arriving in Long Beach at 8:54 am. My first two trips down, we had rented a car to get around, and the last one decided to try out Super Shuttle, since we were staying across the street and were only there for a few days. With the number of people we have going this trip, and realizing we really didn't use the car all that much anyway, we will be taking the Shuttle again.
Park tickets have been purchased for my nephew, since he will now be three and need a ticket, and my boyfriend. Sadly, he's not able to come down for the full trip so he will be meeting us on Saturday morning and leaving with us Wednesday night. We're still not sure what to do with the nephew's ticket as we are planning on spending 8 days in the park, minus the blacked out Saturday, and the max ticket is now a 5 day. Any tips would be appreciated! We were debating on just upgrading his ticket to an AP, but not sure if that would be the way to go or if there is any other option other than just getting a 3 day ticket as well.
So our flights are booked, hotel reservations confirmed and Shuttle reservations made, tickets purchased and we have 64 days left to go!!! Hoping to get some alone time in with the boyfriend as I really want to check out Trader's Sams this trip. Would kind of like to do a character breakfast as well since the nephew is a little older and is really getting into the Disney stuff. Are there any favorites, or reasons to go with one over another?
Thanks for reading and I look forward to adding on more as we get closer!!
